Cincinnati Curiosities: Healing Powers of the Wamsley Madstone, Nocturnal Exploits of Old Man Dead, Mazeppa’s Naked Ride & More

by Greg Hand

Explore the eccentric side of yesterday's Queen City
Cincinnatians today wrap themselves in a comforting blanket of serene conformity, soothed by the myth that the Queen City has always been a bland, somewhat Germanic, little backwater. History tells us otherwise. Old Cincinnati was a pretty strange place. UFOs? Witchcraft? Sea Monsters? Occult societies? Public executions? All very common in Old Cincinnati. Over its history, this burgeoning river metropolis pursued the unusual, the sensational and the controversial. Cincinnati was big - among the ten largest U.S. cities. And it was rude and crude, still shaking off the dust from its years as a frontier outpost. Much of the popular nightlife then would be illegal today.
Buckle up as author Greg Hand leads a rambunctious tour through the old, weird Cincinnati.

160 pages, Paperback

Published November 14, 2022

Reviews

[Trixi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting stories about the history of the city. The outhouse stories were enlightening.

[Brendan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The two is being generous. The title and the back cover really emphasize the "weird" but all of that fun stuff is dispensed with in the first chapter and the rest of the book is just 1800s political corruption and newspaper scandals, none of them particularly interesting. The book also cuts out at 1920, and this is the correct way to describe it, at the end of the final chapter there's one wrap up paragraph tacked on and then the book is done with no reflection of any kind on its content.

If you can't give me anything truly weird you could at least have the courage to expose Cincinnati's seedy underbelly into the present day, but this is a coward's book.

[Jason Bergsy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A look at some of the odd histories in Cincinnati. Mostly touching on the 1800s and early 1900s, this book touches on the early days of the city and the counter culture within it.

This book is certainly an easy read and doesn't get too textbooky while touching on the historical topics. Overall I'd find it to be a good read for anyone interested in Cincinnati or even just some strange history as a whole.

[Noah Breeze · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, this book was a fun, quick read of all the wild and weird stories of the past world within Cincinnati. Most of the book comes from newspaper articles and reports from the 1870s through the early 1900s. I am however a bit disappointed, as most of this book again, just comes from newspapers. I was really hoping to read some truly wild and weird stories that likely weren’t picked up by the papers of the time.

[Kim Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short book with short tales about the late 1800s and early 1900s in Cincinnati. You don't necessarily have to be from the city to enjoy the wild stories of what people back then did for entertainment as well as pre-Prohibition forms of intoxication. Each story is only a few pages to a very fast read. Recommend as a vacation read or just a fun read.

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of interesting stories about Cincinnati’s past and a few boring ones that were definitely skimmable.

[Zondra.Hallyahoo.Com · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I was born in Cincinnati and have lived here most of my 71 years but have never heard about most of the history Greg included in this book.